The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos.
Balatro is a solo-developed poker-themed deck-building roguelike that exploded in popularity seemingly out of nowhere. He argues the hype is justified: it is extremely simple to understand yet strategically deep, and it is intensely satisfying thanks to multiplicative score scaling. He recommends it to nearly anyone and places it in S tier. His main reservation is that it is currently unbalanced, though a joker-rebalancing update was imminent.
Liked
Among the simplest deck builders: few keywords, quick poker tutorial, no poker knowledge needed
Simple mechanics combined with deep strategy, which he sees as the best kind of design
Extremely satisfying multiplicative combos and huge exploding numbers
Fast deck changes, frequent discards, and quick access to jokers make every run differ early
Rewards game-breaking builds without making them trivial, since you must understand the mechanics
Normal difficulty goes effectively infinite so you can keep scaling until the game catches up
Quick-paced runs that are easy to restart over and over
Disliked
Currently pretty unbalanced, with lots of tweaking still possible
Some runs feel normal and unremarkable unless you find and plan around a build
Score beyond the target gives no extra reward, so huge numbers are purely for fun
Top 10 of 2024 (#1)
Balatro is a poker-based deck-building roguelike where you play poker hands to beat score targets across eight antes, modifying your deck, upgrading hands and collecting Jokers. He calls it simple to learn but hard to master, and names it his favorite roguelike of the year, placing it at number one. He especially values the variety of builds, the earned feeling of a powerful run, and a well-balanced endless mode with huge numbers.
Liked
Simple mechanics with deep strategy, which he sees as the foundation of a great strategy roguelike
Every Joker is unique, enabling many builds so runs feel different from each other
Powerful builds feel earned through knowledge and timing, like in The Binding of Isaac
Endless mode is enjoyable and addicting, and achievements still unlock there
Exponential score growth is implemented well and stays balanced despite many ways to multiply points
Audio-visual feedback is very satisfying: the point-counting sound and the score catching fire at high numbers
Varied starting decks and difficulty options give replayability and challenge
Disliked
Reaching huge scores requires luck plus a lot of game knowledge
Not every run ends in a monstrous build, though he says the gameplay remains fun regardless
A poker-themed roguelike deckbuilder by solo dev LocalThunk in which you play (deliberately illegal) poker hands and stack Joker modifiers to beat escalating score targets.
Balatro is one of the most acclaimed indie releases of the decade: Metacritic 90 from 32 critics (100% positive), OpenCritic 92 with 100% of critics recommending, and Steam shows about 97.8% positive across roughly 199k reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive). Critics compared it directly to Slay the Spire and called it extremely addictive and easy to pick up; players echo this and most of the negativity is about RNG-heavy high difficulties rather than the base game. It is not early access, but the long-promised 1.1 content update was delayed into 2026 (developer declined a 2025 date to avoid crunch), which some players read as the game being slow-moving or abandoned. It sold over 5 million copies by January 2025, and later won multiple awards (Game Developers Choice GOTY, Game Awards indie and debut categories, BAFTA Debut).
Players love
Extremely addictive 'one more run' loop: short runs, instant restarts, and big satisfying score cascades
Joker synergies and combo-building (retriggers, scaling jokers, Blueprint/DNA-style engines) create wildly different runs and 'broken build' payoffs
Easy to learn even for people who do not know poker; the run-info screen teaches hands visually and the game pulls in non-roguelike players
Juicy presentation: screen feel, animations, sound design and the chill, catchy soundtrack are repeatedly praised
Distinct pixel-art joker designs and overall CRT-like style give it a strong identity
Great value at about $15 with hundreds of hours of play for many, plus a huge unlock list (decks, vouchers, stakes) for completionists
Low system requirements and wide availability (PC, Mac, mobile, consoles); short runs suit mobile and handheld play
Made by one person, which reviewers and players treat as part of its appeal
Common complaints
Luck dominates at higher stakes: players say skill matters less and run quality is decided by shop and joker RNG, with stacked RNG layers (shop, boss blinds, draws, probabilistic cards like Wheel of Fortune)
All-or-nothing blinds: missing a target by a hair ends the run, so losing is abrupt and feels bad rather than a slow, engaging struggle
Higher stakes remove resources (fewer discards, less income, stickers) which pushes players toward a narrow set of viable builds (high card, pairs) and away from straights and flushes
Some players find few meaningful decisions after the first few rounds once a build direction is locked in
Joker pool dilution as more jokers unlock: many weak or non-synergistic jokers clog shops, with no way to banish or curate them
Some find it designed to be compulsive rather than rewarding, leaving a flat or guilty feeling after wins
Progress does not sync between platforms (for example mobile and Steam), forcing players to unlock everything twice
Famously time-consuming: top Steam reviews joke about losing hours, 3 AM sessions and being unable to stop
Can feel tedious
Grinding stakes: players say one deck across all stakes, times 15 decks, means dozens of hours; one estimate cited 72 wins for the remaining decks' middle stakes
Gold Stake and above described as a slot-machine grind of rerolling the shop and restarting until a good joker appears
Restarting repeatedly on hard challenge decks when shops offer no scoring jokers early
100% completion and some achievements are seen as requiring RNG luck more than mastery
What's unique
Takes poker hands as the combat system rather than fantasy combat, then breaks poker rules with jokers, so 'illegal poker' is the hook
Score is a chips-times-mult multiplication, so scaling comes from stacking multiplicative jokers into exponential numbers (players joke about e-notation scores)
Planet cards upgrade hand types, tarot and spectral cards edit the deck, so the deck itself is reshaped in play
Roguedex
Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Balatro is a solo-developed poker-themed deck-building roguelike that exploded in popularity seemingly out of nowhere. He argues the hype is justified: it is extremely simple to understand yet strategically deep, and it is intensely satisfying thanks to multiplicative score scaling. He recommends it to nearly anyone and places it in S tier. His main reservation is that it is currently unbalanced, though a joker-rebalancing update was imminent.
Liked
Disliked